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Friday, November 6, 2015

3D Printing

With the rapid acceleration of 3D printing technology, jewelry, clothing, food, and even pharmaceuticals can now be printed by machines. At EmTech 2015, a group of 3D printing leaders discuss how far the technology has come—and where it's headed.

"Having 3D printer on your desktop gets you to think differently," said Dávid Lakatos. Lakatos, product lead at Formlabs, a desktop 3D printing company, spoke about his company's high-end desktop 3D printers. Formlabs raised $2.9 million on Kickstarter to launch its professional 3D printer called the FORM 1.

But although affordable desktop 3D printers are recent, the technology has been around for decades. "We were in the industrial phase of 3D printing from '84 to 2005," said Lakatos. But in 2005, a "very different kind of 3D printing began appearing. It was for hobbyists." This phase leads up to 2015, when there has been a surge in interest in 3D printing across industries like healthcare, the food industry, and manufacturing.